Very little innovations have been made to develop a small rescue boat which is capable of being used on water and ice and other surfaces and wherein the craft is displaced by two or more rescue persons capable of dragging the small craft over ice flows and land surfaces as well as on bodies of water. The craft, although small, must resist to the wear-and-tear of such environment and be capable of supporting ideally five people whereby a rescued person can be carried by the small water craft. Large ice canoes exist for racing over bodies of water strewed with broken ice and open water but these are constructed of wood ideally using cedar planks which nowadays is covered with a polyester material such as fiberglass. These canoes have a length of over twenty feet and a width of sixty-five inches and capable of accommodating 5 people. In the early Nineteen Nineties such canoes were modified using composite fiberglass sheeting material impregnated with polyester resins but these structures were very rigid and were therefore subjected to damage when impacted by heavy rigid objects such as large pieces of ice. By the mid nineteen nineties these canoes were modified wherein the length thereof was increased to 28 feet and the width up to 50 inches whereby to increase the structural rigidity of the canoes but this created another problem in that the canoe was very heavy and was not flexible to absorb impact forces without damage thereto.
With the advent of Kevlar material a solution appeared to be promissing as such material was very rigid. However, it had too much flexibility for this type of water craft and additional reinforcement was therefore necessary and the weight thereof had to be increased. Although these canoes were used mainly for racing over ice strewn waters or transporting material over such waters they were not reliable for use as a rescue craft due to its lack of flexibility and rigidity and also of its heavy weight.
However, the experience acquired in the construction of such canoes led to the development of the rescue boat of the present invention and one which would be capable of resisting impact, one which would have flexibility, durability and be of light weight so that it could be easily displaced by two or more rescue persons and accommodate up to five persons.